


summer snowflake

by weneedmemories



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Background Sunaosa, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, mentions of blood and vomiting, mild anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29629389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weneedmemories/pseuds/weneedmemories
Summary: in a world where something so delicate could kill, atsumu thinks shinsuke and flowers are pretty much alike. and even when they both bloom in his heart, he still finds them the most beautiful.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu, Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Atsukita Week





	summer snowflake

**Author's Note:**

> hi, it’s my first time writing for atsukita and i swear i never meant to make the first one full of angst but here we are. i just got into the fandom a few months back so it would be really nice to find mutuals who love haikyuu/inarizaki/atsukita/sunaosa as much as i do so please scream at me on twitter @angstaynew
> 
> this work is unbetaed so i’m sorry for any mistake you may find. thank you for giving this fic your time!

The thing about hanahaki disease is that it forces you to choose a side, no in betweens. You either choose yourself or choose the one you love, even knowing full well that the latter would only bring you harm. Happiness doesn't seem to come with either.

It's animal instinct to get away at the first sign of danger so if Atsumu had to make a choice, he would choose himself. He doesn't think it's selfish. In a world as cruel as this one, getting hurt is inevitable so you have to choose where it will hurt a little less. Not everyone thinks like he does and he shouldn’t care because it’s their decision but Atsumu recalls the look on his brother’s face when Atsumu tried to convince him to get the flowers out of his heart. It had pained him to watch how Osamu’s body slowly withered while the flowers continued blooming inside of him.

The first time Atsumu saw the yellow star petals making a trail in the hallway leading to the bathroom, he thought he’d scold Osamu for leaving the floor dirty.

What he didn’t expect to see was his twin wiping blood from his lips. Osamu had told him it’s normal for mouths to bleed. Atsumu would have believed him if it weren’t for the way he had to force the words out with a choke.

He spent the next ten minutes rubbing Osamu’s back while he’s hunched over the toilet to try and get every single one out (before they started growing and falling out again, at least).

He didn’t ask whom the flowers are for, but Osamu told him anyway; said he felt like Atsumu had the right to know after watching him go through all of that.

“It’s Rin. He just...He makes my heart go wild, you know?”

He should’ve known. The flowers become a part of you as much as the person they are for so they take a characteristic, maybe two, from the people they symbolize. In this case, the yellow color.

The dahlias hold the same shade as Rintarou’s eyes.

Atsumu wanted to ask how long it’s been but he already felt a lot after only learning about the fact that his twin had fallen in love with Suna Rintarou, and Rin didn’t feel the same way, He can only imagine how Osamu must’ve been feeling ever since he got them.

Atsumu didn’t think his next words through when he said, “Get the surgery.” It came out with a sense of finality that he had to watch Osamu flinch.

He didn’t remember, but he knew he held Osamu’s hand before they even knew how to breathe. He remembered he held Osamu’s hand the first time Osamu had to leave for far longer than they wanted to be separated and Osamu assured him that he’d be back, that it was going to be okay, and that Atsumu was going to be okay.

He was right about that, and Atsumu is a competitive little shit so he badly wanted to be right, too, when he told Osamu he would hold his hand when he decided to get the flowers removed and that it was going to be okay.

Atsumu wanted to tell him, make him believe everything will be okay, that he would be okay, too, but Atsumu can’t even trust his own words.

"But I don't want to forget," his twin had said with the faintest hint of a smile.  _ Idiot. _

“You always brag that you’d look at me and tell me you lived a happier life when we’re on our deathbeds… How is this living that life, ‘Samu?”

He didn’t say he’s mad, but his voice going a notch higher is a clear indication that he is. Not at Osamu, not even at Rintarou. He’s mad that this has to happen to his brother, that it has to happen to anyone at all when all they do is  _ feel _ .

“He makes me happy, ‘Tsumu.”

“He’s going to kill you.”

Atsumu can’t imagine a life without Osamu. Nevermind that Osamu beats him in their little competition. He just wanted him alive and happy, but he can’t make those decisions for his brother. Though, he wished he’d let him because he only had saving Osamu in his mind right then, and he would choose that option in a heartbeat.

They went to sleep that night cramped in a bed that’s too small to hold them both. Atsumu didn’t try to ask Osamu to get the surgery again but he could never understand why anyone would want to remember something as painful.

He never understood until he met Kita Shinsuke.

Because in a world where something so delicate could kill, Atsumu thinks Shinsuke and flowers are pretty much alike. And even when they both bloom in his heart, he still finds them the most beautiful.

  
  
  


_ Winter _

Atsumu allows the steam from his breath to hit his face but the heat is doing nothing much to relieve him from the negative three degrees celsius killer temperature in Tokyo this time of year.

He looks past the public vehicle's glass, overlooking the city. It's getting pretty dark so the lights from towering posts illuminate the view of falling snow outside the window. It gives the usual white flakes a hazy blanket of faint yellow glow and it makes them look warm despite their nature. He stares at them as if he was on tour and it was an attraction he was afraid of missing if he as much as blinks. He likes how they look as weightless as cotton, and he ponders on what it feels like to be snow.

People have thought about being reincarnated as a bird or as a flower or as a butterfly, but how many others have considered living a new life as snow? Of course, it wouldn't be the most practical choice (not as if we really have the liberty to decide how we're going to live in another life, if there actually exists one).

No matter how mundane it may sound, Atsumu is all about living his life to the fullest. Being snow doesn't sit too well with him. He knows that a lot of people purposely cross oceans just to experience a white Christmas. He honestly likes the idea that waiting for winter to approach makes them excited but he thinks (read: overthinks) that maybe snow has been waiting to see the world just as much as people have.

Atsumu gets cold easily so he isn't too fond of winter, but he thinks that if he were snow, he would be in storms—all whining winds and messy falls and fearless rains. Snow is nice but Atsumu would be the kind that is flawed, the kind people dread, the kind that would keep people indoors, whereas the boy who steps inside the platform, at the same time he thinks he’s starting to think negatively about snow, is the absolute opposite.

Atsumu isn't an expert at this but he knows that if the boy were one, he would be in drizzles—with his porcelain skin and graceful movements and serene beauty. Snow would be nicer than it already is, and the subject of Atsumu's sudden interest proves just that.

He scans the almost full bus while Atsumu’s gaze never leaves his face. Good thing Atsumu is quick to withdraw his eyes when the boy spots the empty seat beside the one he’s in, then proceeds to settle down next to him.

Atsumu has fought so hard not to freeze until this boy suddenly makes him very aware of how much colder it is when his body goes rigid. All he did was walk into the bus but Atsumu knows that the boy is to blame for how he is reacting.

One moment winter is nothing and it’s suddenly everything the next, because the boy who makes Atsumu’s fingers tremble just by sitting there seems like the kind of snow that is flawless; the kind that would make people stop in the middle of a busy street so they can stare at him when he first falls because they waited for him all year, and when he's already on the palm of their hands, they would watch him with a frown on their faces as they think of him slowly slipping through the cracks of their fingers when a new season comes.

He's the kind of snow people would want to keep forever but couldn't because nothing is ever permanent.

Atsumu knows better so he wills himself to keep his eyes straight ahead but the same thing runs around his mind in circles, so he doesn’t notice when the boy asks him a question, and only processes what’s happening when the bus takes a sudden stop and his face is sent moving forward, straight into the seat in front.

“Are you alright?”

Atsumu stares.  _ Dumbly _ . "Sorry?"

"I was asking if your face is okay, and uhm...because you seem like you’re spacing out. Ahhh…” A scratch on his nape. “I’m intruding, aren’t I? I’m sorry.”

The boy’s words come in an avalanche and Atsumu thinks,  _ cute.  _ Maybe he isn’t the only one stumbling over rocks to actually get words out. Then Atsumu watches the boy’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, and Atsumu thinks that might be the prettiest way he’s ever seen anyone.

Atsumu starts to think this is a game of who feels embarrassed more and right now the ball is in his court.

“I’m fine…” He isn’t. Not because his cheeks hurt the slightest bit, no, that’s bearable. He isn’t okay because his fingers are freezing even underneath his gloves.

“Okay, good.”

It’s left at that for a minute (he knows because he counted each second) because what is Atsumu supposed to respond with? He finds his concern solved when the other boy speaks again.

And Atsumu hates that he only refers to him as “the boy” so he decides he’s going to call him  _ Snow.  _ Maybe because he’s meeting him in winter, maybe it’s the way his hair looks like a bed covered in snowflakes.

(He doesn’t know it yet but maybe it’s the way Snow comes hurling into Atsumu’s life like a storm.)

“I meant to ask if you liked flowers or reading.”

Atsumu isn’t one to judge but he wouldn’t have thought of him as someone who likes to talk especially to a stranger. He just gives off that demeanor, but Atsumu always had bad intuition so he washes every prejudice he has of him, except for one—that he’s really,  _ really _ beautiful.

Snow points at the book that rests unmindfully on Atsumu's lap and Atsumu has to make a double take to see what exactly he’s pertaining to. The cover reads  _ The Language of Flowers _ and it gets Atsumu frowning. He pauses for a second before giving out a cautious nod.

It physically hurts Atsumu just thinking about it; as if a part of him breaks every time he thinks about the possibility of Osamu coughing flowers at the exact moment. So when Snow tells him it's such a shame that something so beautiful could be so deadly, he visibly freezes.  _ Frostbite. _

Snow notices, and the composure that has itself wrapped around him crumbles into one of panic and regret. "Are you— Do you—"

He stumbles in his words once more, and this time he doesn't get to finish. He couldn’t have known so Atsumu saves him from the anxiety when he answers, "No, not me. Just someone I know."

But he might as well consider it to be himself because Osamu’s pain is his, too.

Snow nods in understanding. He releases a sigh that says  _ thank god _ , but it's also one that means  _ I'm sorry _ .

_ Thank god it's not you. I'm sorry it has to be someone you know. I'm sorry it has to happen to anyone at all,  _ he probably wants to say.

Atsumu wants to tell him he wishes it were him instead of Osamu. He wants to tell him there is no god because if there is then this wouldn’t happen to Osamu.

A part of him still hopes it’s just something fictional, that doctors and researchers have made a mistake about it, but saying these words to someone makes everything much more real, and it hurts so much more now that the tiny bit of chance he has kept in the crevices of his heart drowns in his blood and shoots right up his head.

It forces him to close his eyes at the onslaught of headache that makes him see white, and for a brief second he feels a warm hand on his shoulder and the faintest  _ are you okay? _

It takes him the last of his energy to push down the mix of worry and heartbreak that rises in his chest while Snow counts in succession to help him breathe.

It is when he feels the light brush of their clothed hands, when the boy’s touch reflects a ray of sunbeam through Atsumu's gloves and onto his skin that Atsumu thinks he's a lot more like the sun, because unlike winter and snow, this boy is warm. He makes Atsumu feel warm.

When Atsumu’s breathing finally evens out, Snow moves and a gap settles between them again. Atsumu suddenly feels a bit colder than he ever did.

They talk about anything and everything to momentarily forget about what just happened. Atsumu learns that the boy’s name is Kita Shinsuke and that he is a year older.

“Kita-san.” He tries and the feeling of the name rolling out feels just right. “Shinsuke,” he says next. He asks if he can call him that.

Shinsuke tells him that Atsumu is a nice name and that yes, Atsumu is free to call him by his name, and jokes that he should start getting used to it for when they get closer. Atsumu doesn't voice out that he likes the idea of growing closer to Shinsuke.

He also learns that Shinsuke's family just moved into the neighborhood a week ago and that he's going to the same university as Atsumu.

"I'm taking film," he says.

Just by looking at Shinsuke, people would probably think he is someone whom the camera loves. An actor, perhaps, or a model.

But Shinsuke's eyes are of brewed coffee with just the right amount of milk, and something about the way he talks about his passion for films makes stars shine in them.

"I like writing," Atsumu starts and he feels like he doesn't want it to end.

But it does, approximately three minutes, two traffic lights, and one smile from Shinsuke later when Shinsuke says it's his stop.

Atsumu's mind goes into overdrive. He wants to do a hundred different things all at the same time. He wants to hold Shinsuke's hand to feel his warmth. He wants to get Shinsuke's number so he can talk to him like this one more time. He wants to get up and see Shinsuke off. He wants to ask Shinsuke if he's ever going to see him again.

He does neither of these. Instead, he thinks of a whole garden and imagines how Shinsuke would fit right in, brighter and more colorful than any other species.

Flowers need sunlight to grow, but it is during one winter night that a seed is planted in Atsumu's heart and Shinsuke happens to radiate the light of a thousand suns.

—

Atsumu doesn’t see Shinsuke again until after a week later.

He should turn his back, go the other way, do everything he can so their eyes won’t meet because he’s afraid Shinsuke will see just how bright they become with him in sight. But he sneaks a glance at Shinsuke, and is surprised to see that he’s already looking at him.  _ Snow squall. _

There are infinite numbers between 0 and 0.01, and in between 0 and the 34 exact seconds it took for Shinsuke to reach him, there is an infinite number of feelings that managed to weave through him.

_ Impatience _ . It isn’t even that long but every second feels like a lightyear.

_ Relief.  _ The campus is small for people in hiding, but huge enough for people desperately looking. Atsumu wants to pretend he doesn’t classify in the latter.

_ Anticipation _ . Of what? That he isn’t sure of.

“Hi, Atsumu. You are, Atsumu, right? Or am I mistaking you for your brother?”

“You’ve met ‘Samu?”

There goes his smile that looks too big to fit his face again, and Atsumu’s breath disappears the same time Shinsuke’s eyes do.  “Twice. I thought he was you in both instances. I would’ve died of embarrassment if I got it wrong for a third.”

Osamu has met Shinsuke twice, but his brother didn’t even bother to mention it. He has no idea why he’s worked up at the idea of Osamu seeing Shinsuke more times than he had before today, but he makes a mental note to eat one of Osamu’s pudding cups when he gets home.

“It’s me. You can tell by the hair,” he points at the top of his head. “and Osamu has a different air to him.”

Shinsuke laughs.

He got Shinsuke to laugh, and he doesn’t know why he suddenly imagines daybreak peeking between snow mountains.

Before Atsumu could think of a million other things to remember Shinsuke by, he feels the weight of Shinsuke’s gaze staring right through his soul when the other says, “I’ll make sure to get it right every time.”

They talk for a while longer compared to last time, mostly about how Shinsuke is adapting to everything, until Shinsuke says he has to go.

Atsumu’s mind goes into overdrive again. And like the night he met Shinsuke, he wants to do a hundred different things all at the same time once more. He wants to tell Shinsuke that he appreciates him making time to talk to him. He wants to tell him he enjoyed the short while he spent with him. He wants to tell him he has the cutest sweater paws under all of his winter clothes.

He still pretty much wants to get Shinsuke’s number. And this time he decides he will. Well, he was about to, but Shinsuke beats him to it when he says, _“Can I get your number, Atsumu?”_

—

Atsumu gives the snarkiest smile when Osamu comes home in their shared uni apartment and his brother finds him eating his second pudding cup. He swears he only planned on taking one, but Osamu had been out longer today. It’s hard to stay away from Osamu’s stash when Atsumu is  _ that  _ bored without him.

“You shit, ‘Tsumu.”  _ Huh.  _ Atsumu expects more bite because if there’s anything Osamu loves more than Rintarou, it would be his pudding cups. Instead, Osamu just drops on the space beside him on the couch.

_Weird_. Atsumu did say he has a different air to him but he didn’t mean this—happy, maybe a little more in love.

“Welcome home, little brother! You seem to be in a good mood.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey—“ Atsumu’s sure he isn’t imagining it when Osamu’s head falls on his shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“ _ Yeah _ . Is it bad that I feel happy?”

“Why would you feel like it’s wrong?”

“Because it’s Rin.”

“‘Samu.” They can’t be talking about this again because he knows he’ll only end up arguing with Osamu while holding back on telling his brother to take the procedure. Besides, Osamu told him he decided to put a distance between him and Rintarou.

“No, ‘Tsumu. It’s different this time. It feels light. Being with him today...it felt like floating.”

Osamu would always tell him he can’t breathe; that the dahlias are weighing on his chest; that it hurts. This is the first time he’s hearing that it’s the other way around. And that should be a good thing, but what if Osamu is reading this wrong? What if it feels like floating now, but when he’s already too high up, it sends him crashing down in full speed?

“The flowers are still there.” It’s not a question. And the small petal that makes its way between Osamu’s lips when he coughs is proof of that.

“It is. But what if they’re starting to disappear? Look at this,” he holds the yellow leaf on his palm. “They’ve been growing smaller, ‘Tsumu.”

Osamu sounds hopeful for the first time in months, and Atsumu doesn’t have the heart to make him feel like things won’t be alright so he says  _ okay,  _ and hopes just as much as Osamu does because there’s nothing in the world he wants more than that.

They’re silent for a while, and Atsumu thinks Osamu has fallen asleep so he decides he will, too, but his twin speaks before Atsumu could even close his eyes. “Kita-san seems nice.”

“Osamu.” It’s a warning that he should think his next words through. Atsumu doesn’t know why he’s reacting that way at the mere mention of Shinsuke’s name. Maybe it’s how Osamu’s words and tone seem to hold more meaning than they should.

“Just be careful, ‘Tsumu.”

—

He will never admit it out loud but Osamu’s words got him thinking more than he expected it to. What does  _ be careful _ exactly mean? Shinsuke looks like the warmer part of winter. He could never hurt Atsumu.


End file.
